From the 16th to the 27th August, our new Year 7 cohort were immersed in a range of lessons and activities preparing them for the beginning of their Farnley Academy journey.
Although there were a few nervous faces on the Monday mornings, students soon started to relax once they began their teambuilding lessons and started to get to know their peers and form groups.
To see students coming together in a new environment and working with each other to complete their teambuilding tasks was extraordinary. They made rockets in a science teambuilding lesson and had to work in groups to piece together the melody of a song using the Boomwhackers in music. We are ultimately very proud of these students and what they have achieved during their week at Summer School.
From reading student surveys, it was clear that students felt they had improved over the week in English and maths. They were working on specific skills to help improve in these subjects based on the scores from their baseline tests they completed in Year 6. Students developed their socials skills but also worked hard to develop their academic skills during this time too.
This was the first year the Farnley Academy have offered a Summer School and we think it is something that has been extremely useful for our new Year 7 students. As we were unable to run transition days this year, it gave these students the opportunity to meet their teachers and peers prior to September, ensuring a smooth transition.
Our Year 7 pupils were asked what they enjoyed the most about the Farnley Academy Summer School, the responses to this question were wonderful, with students saying they enjoyed particular lessons, their teachers and making new friends, the brownies even got a mention.
Students are most looking forward to heading out on trips, experiencing our exciting rewards and starting their new timetable of lessons.
Overall, we feel that our Summer School was a huge success with students saying they really enjoyed their time. The celebration event on the Fridays was a huge success and we have our final helicopter ride taking place this Friday 17th. Keep an eye out, we will be waving!
